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Kecoilections of iiij own Yimes, bj 
Chief Justice. George Shea, I ^ 
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1032 to 1894. 



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PREFACE 

I BEGAN at my rural retreat in Brattleboro, Vermont, 
now eleven years ago (August 1, 1883), to indite these 
Recollections. Since tliat time anxious business and 
other cares have required all the attention my ability 
could exert. At last a season of comparative retirement 
from the actual strifes of business comes to me, offering- 
cause to hope that it puts it in my power to complete 
what I then undertook. There are many projects and 
events of which I alone am now able adequately to relate. 
It will disclose motives, objects, and careers of abiding in- 
terest ; and — as it has been said by those who chiefly have 
persuaded me to the task — will make more clear deeds 
upon which must rest the fame of men whose names are 
already esteemed of permanent historic value. They all 
are passed through this to the higher and eternal life.^ I 
shall have occasions to speak of matters of lighter, but 

^ Among whom ought to be es- and the late Robert Shelton Mac- 
pecially mentioned Horace Greeley ; kenzie. Greeley, Seabiiry, Gill- 
Samuel Seabury, D. D., Vice- more, O'Conor, and Wilson were 
President Henry Wilson ; Lord very urgent tliat serious affairs 
Houghton ; William Connor Magee, with which they were connected 
D. D., late Lord Archbishop of should be accurately recorded by 
York (his father and mine were me, being most familiar with their 
Corkagians, and knew each other), history. I shall have much to re- 
Charles O'Conor, General Quincy late of tliese eminent men them- 
Adams Gillmore, Bayard Taylor, selves. , , 



t S3? 
.S53 



still not trivial significance, wholly within my own know- 
ledge, the relation of which has often entertained my 
own immediate associates, and which may have an interest 
for a number of people of these and of future days ; and 
thus, perhaps, I may aid to preserve, in colors less fading 
than those of memory, incidents, anecdotes, and traditions 
of distinguished personages who knew me, whom I knew, 
and with whom I was often closely consociated in plea- 
sant intercourse as well as in affairs of pith and moment. 
These Recollections will comprehend a space of time of 
more than half a century, Long years ! but brief in 
retrospect. 

Bellagio, Lake of Como, Italy, 
September 20, 1894. 



265 '07 



MY RECOLLECTIONS OF MY OWN TIMES 

1832-1894 



I BEGAN on April 00, 1837, active and as they proved 
efficient efforts to support and maintain myself by my 
own individual labors. I was then ten years of age. 

On the fourth day of the previous month, while on 
a visit to the city of Washington with Mrs. Katherine 
Stevenson, my maternal aunt, I was present at the inau- 
guration ceremonies of President Van Buren ; and I was 
there not so much by curiosity to behold the occasion, or 
to see the incoming of the new President, as to look upon 
Andrew Jackson taking leave finally of public life. He 
had often come to the Lancastrian school,^ and was ever 



1 I believe that the plan of in- 
struction instituted by Joseph Lan- 
caster is not used in this our time. 
Its main features were employing- 
the older or more efficient scholars as 
monitors, and a system of elaborate 
drill, by which those as teachers 
were able to instruct in the rudi- 
ments of reading, writing, and arith- 
metic a large number of the other 
scholars at once. The materials 
used were very scanty ; and, instead 
of pen and ink, or slate and pencil, 
a board was spread with sand for 
each child, in which he charactered 
the letters with his fingers. The 
little community was so organized 



that the members learned much 
from each other by feeling the need 
of common efforts to accomplish 
common purposes. The movements 
of the children were regulated by 
military precision, and in our 
school we had a company which 
drilled in a uniform of green bom- 
bazine jackets, nankeen trousers, 
cap trimmed with gilt lace, and 
long spears witli heavy tin heads. 
This body had a particular charm 
for the President, and proud we 
were as we sometimes filed in 
marching order before the Hero of 
New Orleans. 



friendly and talkative to the boys. I attended that 
school, and was " the monitor " of my class. The school- 
house was situate on the middle of the Common, which is 
between the Capitol Hill and the Navy Yard. As I re- 
collect him, he, notwithstanding the rigorous aspect which 
some of his portraits represent,^ appeared to us a kind- 
hearted man, of simple and earnest manners ; and we 
boys looked upon him as a welcome friend, and never 
thouoht of him as the hero soldier, or as the dictatorial 
President of whom we heard harsh accusations ; which 
probably none of us heard as abundantly as I did, for I 
was in the midst of the old Federal and the W liig coteries. 
Yet it was true that Jackson was a most positive man in 
his opinions and acts, and, while straightforward and 
open, too frequently indulged in passionate outbursts. 
My associates were among the sons of our Federo- 
Whigs,^ because my paternal grandfather was, and had 
been since his arrival in America (1812-1813,) of " the 
old Federalist school " of politics, and was a firm devotee 
to a protection of American industry, almost prohibitory 
of articles of foreign fabrication, especially those of Great 
Britain. He voted in the presidential election of 1832, 
as he had in that of 1828, for Henry Clay for President ; 
and his only son, my father, a Whig and an ardent 
adherent of that great leader, voted for Clay, in 1844. 

1 The finest portrait, as a work of ^ The Whigs were not formally 

art, of Jackson — and probably the organized a party till the spring of 

best presentment of him in his prime 1834, and then by an union of those 

— is that by Jarvis, the eminent who condemned the policy and acts 

American painter. It represents of the administration, — especially 

him in the uniform of a major-gen- the removal of deposits of public 

eral. Another represents him in his treasure by General Jackson, — most 

latter time, and throughout just as of whom were previously known as 

I have seen him. It is a profile, supporters of Adams and Clay, and 

These portraits are in the Manhat- advocates of " the American Sys- 

tan Club, New York, and the last tem." 
named was donated by Charles 
O'Conor. 



There were pleasant relations of acquaintanceship be- 
tween Mr. Clay and my father, which began in 1836- 
1837, while he was a writer and reporter on the " Intel- 
ligencer " (the national organ of the Whig party), pub- 
lished by Gales & Seaton at Washington. My father and 
his family, then recently arrived from West Point, were 
living in Philadelphia during the autumn of 1832 : the 
Clay and Jackson election contest was at its fever height. 
We, in these our latter and comparatively placid times, 
can have no notion of the partisan envy, hatred, and 
malice of those times, running into all relations of social, 
business, and even religious life. We, children at school, 
were, to the verge of our physical ability, contentious and 
quarrelsome with one another on the subject, — probably 
not less senselessly than our fathers, — and more than 
once was I beaten and bruised by fellow-scholars for 
my advocacy of Clay. Our respective parties gathered 
each day after school-hours about the " Liberty Pole " 
(Clay) and the " Hickory Pole " (Jacksonian),i and those 
were the centrifugal spots from which we sallied forth 
for the strifes. I was thus from almost childhood within 
the arena of party contentions, and was especially in 
the atmospheres of the Federalist doctrines ; wherefore 
it came about in latter years (1835-1837) I was near to 
the centres where were engendered those enmities and 
opinions of parties which, though of remote origin, ^ were 
now more belligerent than before, and were developing 
an immense popular uprising against the Van Buren- 
Jackson "• dynasty," which had for years seemed invin- 

1 The Clay|3ole was our familiar tions. . . . The first year (1821) of 
tall flagstaff, with the liberty cap Mr. Monroe's second term had 
at its head ; the Jackson, a tall scarcely passed away before the 
hickory-tree, with its branches political atmosphere became in- 
trimmed close to the toj). flamed to an unprecedented extent.' 

- " Jefferson and Madison were — Van Buren's Political Parties. 
brought forward by caucus nomina- 



eible. And just as Jackson was leaving office, the great 
crises of 1836-1837 were already imminent. Van Buren 
succeeded to assume the burthen of the ensuing business 
calamities — and great they were.^ Jackson retired with 
a degree of personal popularity greater than ever : greater 
than at any time during his presidential term, and his po- 
litical day closed with the radiance of a glorious autumn. 
Van Buren from the outset had to enter into an arena 
from which the sunlight had gone, and about which clouds 
and ominous conjectures were gathering. The industrial, 
commercial, and financial resources and energies of the 
country were checked, and before the spring of 1837 
came they were throughout the land, to all seeming, hope- 
lessly cast down. 

My first view of the city of Washington was at the 
dawn of day on Christmas, 1835. We left Baltimore the 
previous night in the regular mail-coach, and greatly did 
I rejoice in our four horses as we dashed along. I was in 
the ecstasies of a novel excitement, and if I slept, it must 
have been towards morning. I have in memory, with the 
distinctness of a boy's vivacious mental vision, the inci- 
dents of the route. On coming near to Bladensburgh a 
snowstorm was setting in, and our coach, reaching Washing- 
ton, toiled into the centre of the city through a heavy fall of 
snow. I heard at the time, and have always understood, 
that that was thelast mail-coach driven between those cities 
— for the next day the railway line was opened to Bladens- 
burgh, and from there for a short time the coaches for- 

1 As I had behulfl Van Buren in pageant from an upper window as it 

his incoming, so I chanced to behold passed along Cliatham Street. The 

him in retiring, on his way to Kin- respectful and public receptions of 

derhook. He was received at New our distinguished men were with 

York in an impressive manner and one accord and were notable events 

conducted in an open carriage in those days. Now — none so poor 

through the cliief streets by a mul- to do them reverence, 
titudinous procession. I saw the 



warded tlie passengei'S and mails into Washington, till 
the railway was completed to the Capitol. My fancy was 
eager that night — perhaps nothing passed me unnoticed : 
the stopping o£ the coach at the roadside taverns, to 
change horses ; dropping and taking in passengers ; the 
calls and shouting of the stable-men, and the glancing of 
the lights of lanterns as the horses, harnesses, and coach 
were examined ; the smith's forge casting forth flames ; 
the face of the blacksmith radiant in their rays ; the 
sparks flying in sparkling showers around the anvil as the 
iron was beaten ; and the horses standing in the shop 
ready to be shod. A warm repast of food, and we were 
soon all aboard again ; and the new-comers opened new 
themes for conversation. The horses " were given their 
heads," we were once more on the road ; the notes of 
the guard's bugle startled the silence of the dark and chill 
night as we went onwards. Many were the stops we 
made near farmhouses to leave out or take in passengers ; 
and each such change evoked a renewal of lively conver- 
sations with the latest comers. Political subjects, often 
very heated, superseded all others. Our fii-st stop after 
leaving Baltimore was at the Relay House, at the bridge 
near the river. There were also outside-jiassengers, not- 
withstanding the inclemency of the weather; there the 
smokers perched tliemselves, and, buried in their heavy 
furs, looked to my imagination as a coterie of convivial 
bears. Some of those scenes, though I saw them then in 
reality for the first time, had a familiar aspect. 1 have 
since thought that I must have seen engravings of Wou- 
verman's roadside hostelries, with the taverns, forges, and 
horses of his storied landscapes : those would have had 
sufficient suggestivness for my young fancy. As we came 
by Bladensburgh we heard of riots there among the rail- 
way operatives, and great was the fear of some of our 
people. But we saw nothing of riot or rioters. I note 



8 

the incident, for it was there I first heard the phrase, 
" Corkonians and Fardowners," — a phrase since grown 
into wide repute with ns. 

In Washington our home was a little way outside the 
city proper, on the road to Georgetown, near the Bridge. 
The houses in that neighborhood stood in large gardens 
and orcliards, or were farms. Yet there were good fam- 
ilies enough there and near by to make a community of 
choice people. John Quincy Adams lived near by, and 
well I recollect his gronnds abundantly covered with apri- 
cots and freestone peaches, in which I as well as other 
lads took a free and stealthy delight. But onr own chief 
intimacies were with the Hon. John L. O'Sidlivan, and 
Samuel Langtree,^ and their families, and our evenings 
were often spent together. Mr. Adams and my fathei', 
being near neighbors and of the same political party, and 
each of a literary turn, were on more than mere speak- 
ing acquaintanceship. I remember some of the notables 
of that time in Washington : there was the Reverend 
Dr. Kyder, the famous president of Georgetown College, 
who was a frequent caller at our^house. He was a very 
intimate associate of Mr. Clay, and one of the greatest 
pulpit orators, conversationalists, and controversialists of 
tlie age. There was Lewis Cass, sitting in front of liis 
residence, his custom of a summer afternoon, always 
ready for a talk. I liked to wander in that direction, and 
have the " General " notice and call me to him. Then 
there were the two daughters of General Van Ness, 
beauties and grande demoiselles, one of whom became 
Lady Gore Onsley, wife of the British ambassador ; 
the other the wife of the Hon. James I. Roosevelt, a 

' They were the editors and pro- oldest editor in the United States, 

prietors of the Georgetown Metro- In late years he and I were close 

polita7i. Mr. O'Snllivan was after- friends and associates in literary and 

wards owr charg-4 to Portugal, and social circles, 
at the time of his death (18i)o) the 



judge of the New York Supreme Coui-t. The former I 
never saw after leaving Washington, but Mrs. Roose- 
velt honored me with hospitable attentions, and I have 
been at her receptions in her mansion on Broadway, in 
New York. Others equally attractive, of Washington 
society, I knew, but in later days ; and of whom I may 
speak. 

While we were living at this place, near the George- 
town bridge, a man named Whelan attended to the gar- 
den. He was a native of Ireland ; came from near Car- 
rickfergus;^ and was a violent Jacksonian Democrat — 
limited, and for some cause, and probably no reason, 
roused, and not seldom, by a hatred of Van Buren, then 
the Vice-President. Maybe because he regarded him a 
sort of Dauphin, waiting for Jackson's place. But it is 
of his brother " Larry " that I have to speak. He was a 
frequent Sunday visitor to his brother, our gardener. 
This Larry was a stone-cutter, working at this time, and 
I believe for many years after, on what was known as 
"the New Treasury Building." He bore a most re- 
markable and notable resemblance to Jackson, and both 
the brothers prided themselves greatly on it. The Presi- 
dent frequently passing where Larry was at work, seldom 
neglected, it was said, the opportunity to give him a 
kindly recognition. Malicious and jocose tongues would 
suggest that there was possibly a consanguineous relation- 
ship between them ; but the malice lost its venom and 
the joke its point, for the two were nearly of an age. 
Now, on the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue, just oppo- 
site this Treasury Building, then in course of erection, 
was a small public-lioiise where nothing but Mononga- 
hela whiskey was sold. At noon for an hour the me- 

^ The parents of Jackson were a remarkable town, and one of the 
natives of Carrickfergus, a town in famous antiquities of Europe, 
tlie north of Ireland, near Belfast, 



10 

chanics and laborers assembled there ; bringing their 
dinners with them, and having a glass of the liquor. The 
whiskey was drawn direct from the keg into large pitchers, 
and tlms the customers were served. They were good- 
tempered, and I cannot recollect any case of intoxication 
among them. I was tempted to the place, and was often 
there during that hour on Saturdays, when there was no 
school, to hear them tell stories and sing songs. There 
I first heard " The Shan Van Voch," " The Wearing of the 
Green," the "Rollicking, Roaring Irishman,"^ and "The 
Cruiskeen Lawn," and though in later years I have heard 
those songs sung by the famous Tyrone Power, by Sam- 
uel Lover himself, and by Mossop and Collins, I think 
that I have never heard them given with more genu- 
ine humor and true meaning than when voiced by the 
stone-cutters and laborers of the Treasury. There were 
sweet tenor voices among them ; and Moore's melodies 
were familiar favorites. These jovial associates carried 
Larry into a bit of disrespectful fun, which, in the 
autumn of 1836, nearly brought to a close the distin- 
guishing courtesy by which the President noticed him. 
He yielded to the mischief-making desire of the others, 
prompted, as was afterwards suspected, by the brilliant 
and ill-fated George Drumgoole, the member from Vir- 
ginia. The costume usually worn out of doors by the 
President was somewhat peculiar and well known. Larry 
was accounted to be a counterfeit presentment. A white 
beaver hat, heavily in bands of mourning ; spectacles, 
weighty in gold rims, on his nose ; long-skirted overcoat 
reaching to the ankles ; and a thick black cane with large 
ivory knob, completed a deceptive attire. And forth 

1 Charles O'Conor, tlu; distin- some of these songs ; of whom I 
guished advocate, — wlio honored shall anon have much to say. 
me for thirty years with friendship - lie fought a duel ; killed his 
and intimacy, — was very fond of opponent ; and for some years sur- 
vived his usefulness and happiness. 



11 

down Pennsylvania Avenue went the verisimilitude of the 
presidential personage, tall, erect, and with martial gait. 
He was offered salutes here and there in abundance as he 
strode on ; and he knew how to acknowledge them in ap- 
propriate form. Some intimates outside the innuediate 
conspirators had been let into a preknowledge of what 
was to be done, and those enjoyed it, but from a prudent 
distance. Greatly was the gleeful expectation arising to 
meet Larry on the return up the avenue ; when, within 
a couple of streets of the Capitol grounds, near the tem- 
porary railway shed, the President himself, just in from 
a visit out of town, turned into the avenue, and the " two 
Dromios " came face to face. It is not necessary to 
describe further than to say that the pleasing hope of 
lookers-on was not to be gratified for a sc^ne in which 
Larry would be pul)licly caned — an expectation not un- 
reasonable from Jackson's reputation for prompt discipline. 
The President quietly approached Larry, and what was 
said by him was heard by none but themselves. Larry's 
hurried and furtive efforts to rid himself of his uneasy 
garments caused the only merriment. The President 
without delay had a hack called, and Larry, placing him- 
self in it, humiliated and sad, for the first and probably 
the last time in his life went home in his own carriage. . 

General Jackson was partial to at least one more native 
of his fatherland. This was Martin Ranahan, famous 
among the local celebrities of the time. He was what is 
called " a character ; " and he and Larry were indeed 
jyvivileged characters. Martin was the chief hall-porter 
at the White House, and had been, I think, in that 
office from the beginning of President Jackson's first 
term. He was nursing an ancient, ardent, and vindictive 
hostility towards all '' Whigs and Whiggery ; " and this 
passion he actually sought occasions to declare and inflict. 
The occasions which came oftenest were when visitors, 



12 

even the Wliig- senators, called ; and many a time and 
oft were his incivility and annoyances complained of to 
the President personally. These instances of disrespect 
grew more and more nnmerons, and at length Martin 
was brouo-ht to face the multitude of accusations. The 
President sent for him to come to his private chambers* 
where his Excellency earnestly upbraided the unappeas- 
able Martin. "Yer Excellencer^," suggested the culprit, 
" those are only what o?rr enemies, the dastardly Whigs, 
say ; and if I don't mean to be too civil it is just to their 
likes." The President told him that callers, whether 
Whigs or any others, on public business had the right 
to be respectfully received and presented ; and added, 
" Martin, your conduct has become intolerable. We 
must part." Martin assumed the attitude of jiatient 
sufferance, and said : " Well ! well ! yer Excellences, if 
it is your wish I suppose it has to be ; but, sir, a word 
in season. I go along the avenue, and into the halls of 
the hotels, and I hear those same senators and the likes, 
talk about yer Excellencee, too ; and I tell ye that if I 
believed only a little of all they say of you, I would n't 
stay in this White House another day." The President 
succeeded in subduing his mirth long enough to have 
Martin depart the chambers, and to say to him : "1 sup- 
pose it is so, Ranahan, — perhaps you are as well abused 
as myself." His " Excellencee " would relate this inci- 
dent with great gusto to the accusing senators and others ; 
and whether Ranahan amended his manners, or the 
callers began to tolerate him, it is certain that he became 
a more famous " Martin," and very popular ; so much so 
that he remained the hall-porter to the end of the Jackson 
administration ; was retained by President Van Buren, 
and by President Harrison. When General Harrison, as 
the successor of Van Buren, came to the hall of entrance 
under the portico of the White House, March, 1841, 



13 

Martin, who was well known to him, was there to do the 
duties of his office. " Welcome, yer Excellencee, to yer 
own hoouse. All is ready for you ; I am now the only 
martin in the nest." " Remain here, Martin, and help to 
keep it warm for me." And remain he did, growing in 
favor and fame, till John Tyler, the Vice President, suc- 
ceeding to the presidency on the death of Harrison, April 
4, 1841, siipcrseded the old porter by appointing one of 
the rising mob of political applicants.^ They were now 
a body of mingling, persistent gangs, for an invasion of 
Tylerite democracy was pushing aside or cooperating 
with the former host which Horace Greeley had spoken 
of as " coon minstrels and cider-suckers." 

As I have said, I was at the inauguration of President 
Van Buren (March 4, 1837). That morning the out- 
going and the incoming President rode together in an 
open carriage, made, it was currently rumored, from tim- 
ber of the frioate Constitution. I watched from the 
western terrace of the Capitol the procession as it moved 
from the White House down the avenue, and wild and 
loud were the salutations of the masses of the people along 
the route. My father was connected with the press ; and, 
as he had till lately reported for the newspaper with which 
he was connected (the "Washington Intelligencer,") 
I had often gone upon the floor of the Senate to see 
him, and often to get from him " the copy " to bring to 
the editorial room ; and so, at the time of the inaugu- 
ration I was known to members of the Senate, and, bet- 
ter for my purpose, to most of the clerks and attendants 
of that chamber ; wherefore I easily passed on in the 

1 The date, however, at which under Van Buren, and, indeed, while 

the organization of the uses of po- he was Vice President. The Jackson 

litical patronage for party purposes, administration had two coteries in it 

corrupting the civic service, was in- from its earliest start : one was Van 

troduced into national offices was Buren's, the other Calhoun's. 



14 

gathering of distinguished officials and other personages, 
usual on such events, to the temporary platform erected 
over the steps of the eastern portico ; and there, standing 
near the chair where Jackson, now a private citizen sat, 
I heard, but probably did not heed, President Van Buren 
pronounce the inaugural address. 

That day began to body forth a memorable era for our 
country. In its conceptions were already the stimulants 
to those contentions which found no end till the war for 
the Union of the Republic determined an enduring na- 
tionality. The device called the caucus — said to be 
peculiar to us — had then its permanent establishment in 
political uses, and its baneful influences were already 
usurping the healthful operation of free and intelligent 
party adherency. The winter of 1836-1837 saw business 
generally beginning to fall into the distress which was one 
of the severest which we ever have suffered. Banks were 
becoming weak, and the weaker began to break. There 
was a small bank on the avenue, near to Fourteenth 
Street, close to where Willard's Hotel has since stood. 
One morning its doors remained closed. A crowd of its 
depositors, among whom were negroes, gathered about it, 
and increased soon to a great number. They tried to 
force the entrance open. Well do I recollect the frantic 
actions of what was at last a mob. The president of the 
bank nor any of its officers could be found ; but the 
president's body was found the next morning. He was 
in dread of being "lynched," and had drowned him- 
self in the canal. The indefinite and foreboding hoiTor 
by which this scene and circumstance affected my mind 
and imagination has never been effaced nor diminished. 
I then first heard of a bank breaking, of lynching, of 
suicide ; and first saw a tumultuous crowd of thoughtless 
people made savage by anger and a desire for revenge. I 
have in later years heard of and seen many such out- 



15 

breaks and crimes, and more portentous ; ^ but this first 
impression remains unmixed with others, and ever excites 
in me a fresh feeling of repulsion. 

The month after the inauguration the common crash 
came ; and the financial, industrial, and commercial 
centres of the business of the country had to yield wholly 
to the forces of adversity. At this time (1893-1894) in 
the presence of the depressed state of business, especially 
of our industrial fabrication, and of the wide and deep 
financial derangement, it is meet to recall to our thought 
the causes and the occasions of former like events. 
Those of 1836-1837 were — it must be admitted — quite 
peculiar ; but their warning example is nevertheless of 
pregnant value. Their history is this : that from the 
claims paid to us by a number of European nations on 
account of spoliations committed by them under the Con- 
tinental system of Napoleon, there remained belonging 
to the government of the United States itself a balance 
of about 135,000,000 ; and this sum the government had 

1 I was a beholder of the Astor and bore a dangerous though 

Place riot, hi which the partisans of only general likeness to Horace 

Edwin Forrest and those of AVilliam Greeley. Venturing out to see 

Macready, the rival actors, thought how matters were, he was set 

it feasible to fix the merits and pre- vipon by ruffians ; and struck by 

eminence of one or the other. I some heavy instrument, his skull 

saw hoiTible phases, also, of the was fractured. The celebrated 

Draft Riots in ISOo. The latter surgeon, Lewis A. Sayre, — from 

were most pregnant in immediate himself I have the story, — was 

danger at that very time to the na- instantly called in, and lifting 

tional cause ; more than even the the portions of the skull which 

armed hosts of the Confederation pressed upon the brain, the poor 

converging upon the borders of our man regained his mind. Sayre's 

neighboring State of Pennsylvania, indignation was violent at the bru- 

I must relate one incident. There tal and reckless act. But the old 

lived in West 29th Street, between man did not join him in this view. 

8th and 0th avenues, an old and "Oh, doctor," said he, "the boys 

respected citizen known as "Pop." meant it all right. They took me 

He was an innocent and hearty for Horace Greeley " ! and he was 

devotee of the Democratic party, wholly sincere and reconciled. 



16 

placed In eli^hty banks on deposit. The banks in time 
were regarding and using it in their trade of loans on 
credit ; and regarding further the sum in the nature of 
permanent loans to themselves by the government. The 
Bank of the United States had been abolished. So, at 
last a time came for withdrawing suddenly these dejjosits. 
Jackson was and had been urgent to create a currency to 
be composed mainly of specie ; and it was to that end 
that he had required the payments from those foreign 
nations to be paid in specie, and to be transmitted, as far 
as convenient, in specie to this country. Congress now 
directed the f35,000,000 to be distributed among the 
States, and it was to make this distribution that the 
government called in those deposits from the banks, 
and so as to meet with specie the drafts in favor of the 
States. This unexpected call, together with the breaks 
in the overstrained credits between us and Europe, and 
the ruinous decline in the cotton-market, were of the 
causes and occasions which precipitated the calamity 
upon us. 

In the early winter of 1836-1837, my father had 
returned to Baltimore. He had to accept work wherever 
he could find employment ; but he was induced to go 
there, I think, by his old West Point friend, Edgar 
Allan Poe. A new weeldy was starting or reviving, 
called the " Monument," and he was required to assist as 
literary editor. This was one of Poe's seasons of utter 
poverty,^ much owing to the hard times, but more to his 
own failings. The paper was of course unsuccessful ; 
it lacked money support and proper business manage- 
ment. After remaining in that city till the spring of 
1838, my father went to Philadelphia, and there engaged 
in the literary department of the " Saturday Courier," 

1 Poe is one whom I reserve to speak of at length in a further part 
of these Recollections. 



17 

with his friend Joseph R. Chandler, and sometimes wrote 
for Godey's " Lady's Book " and the " Southern Liter- 
ary Messenger." Our stay in Philadelphia had incidents 
for me which are worth mentioning ; but our removal to 
Baltimore produced a jiositivg directing influence upon 
my own course of life. My aunt and I returned home 
soon after the inauguration. Attendance at daily school 
had become a weary toil : I learned more and better 
from my father's brief examinations of an evening than 
from the day's plodding in the close schoolroom ; and 
the restlessness begotten by the excitements of Washing- 
ton indisposed me for further attendance on mere routine 
studies. Besides, I began to perceive that it might be 
convenient, probably Avould be necessary, for me to do 
something towards my own support. My first impulse 
was to go back to Washington and procure the place of 
a page in either house of Congress. I was, as I have men- 
tioned, known to some of the Senators, and was likewise 
to Representatives ; so the impulse was not wholly vain 
nor unpromising. But, late of an afternoon, as I was in 
a day-dream, loitering along St. Paul Street, coming to 
the corner of the lane leading down to the Court House, 
I saw seated on the '•'• stoop," in front of his office, 
William Gwinn, the editor and proprietor of the " Bal- 
timore Gazette." He was friendly to our family, and 
knew me. He spoke to me ; and as we talked, it 
suddenly occurred to me that I should like to be a com- 
positor, — the name by which type-setters are called. He 
seemed amused at the earnestness with which I made the 
request, and said I was too young to think of anything 
but school. Young as I was in years, I was younger in 
appearance : for my years I was truly small in size and 
seemed very delicate in health. I reminded him of the 
hard times, and that it might soon be needed that I find 
means for my own maintenance. I also told him that I 



18 

could no longer abide the imprisonment of the school- 
room, and how little good it was doing- me. He was an 
indulgent, amiable gentleman ; and perhaps only to 
please what might have been a boy's fleeting fancy, told 
me to come to him the following Monday morning. ^ I 
was early that morning in calling on Mr. Gwinn ; he 
took me to the composition-room, and gave me in charge 
of the foreman ; a small, stout keg — once a depository 
of nails — was after a long search procured, and on that 
I took my stand at " the case." Jacket off, shirt sleeves 
rolled uj), I began to learn the rudiments of the art of 
printing, and to begin the world in earnest. I had 
already picked up, while running about newspaper-offices, 
some slight knowledge of types, and the way in which 
they should be set in the compositor's " stick." This 
came to my assistance ; but I first, and instantly, wished 
to be familiar with " the boxes " in the " cases," and, 
noticing that the boxes were of different sizes, I at once 
taught mj'Self that the sizes were four in number, and 
each of a capacity suitable to the greater or less use of 
each letter; thus, the largest box was for the "lower- 
case " ey the «, c, d, /?, 711, », o, 7", .s, ^, and ?/, were each 

^ The first newspaper-office I gaberhmzie," in the "Antiquary," 
recollect being in was that of a novel which I had recently read. 
" Niles' Register," situate in Light I do not recollect that General 
Street, Baltimore. I went there Green and I saw each other again 
with my father in the spring of till the morning of September 7, 
1835, who had an appointment to IS.JU, when we met — and I made 
meet th ere General Duff Green. I myself known to him — on board 
was so deeply imjiressed with the the Cunard liner America, at Eos- 
general's pei'sonality that it has ton harbor, bound for England : I 
never faded in my memory. His going for recreation, he on a mission 
very tall .ind slender figure, his of great national importance — to 
dress that of a South-western which we shall recur. Our ancient 
frontier pioneer, and the long staff accpiaintanceship on my father's 
of a sapling tree which he bore, account quickly became a confiden- 
recalled to my imagery Scott's de- tial intimacy, 
scrijjtion of Edie Ochiltree, " the 



I 



19 

of like size ; the 6,/', g, v, vj, and y, of lesser, but each 
alike ; and the i, j, k, q, and ;f, the smallest boxes, and 
likewise uniform. The punctuation marks were also in 
these smallest boxes ; and the capital letters were in " the 
upper case," in boxes of the same smallest capacity. 
Thus informed by my own observation, I was before the 
close of that Monday master of the types ; and on 
Tuesday morning I began to " set up " some " pi," that 
is, types which have fallen into mingled confusion ; and 
then, on following days, I " distributed " those types, 
that is, dropped them into their appropriate boxes in the 
cases. Before the end of the week I was " setting uj) 
matter " from the clippings from the " exchanges," and I 
saw my work ajJi^earing in the columns of the " Gazette." 
I have, since then, often read of the feeling of pride 
which young authors have in seeing their first efforts in 
print ; yet I doubt if any ever felt a truer and finer delight 
than I did when I saw my own mechanical labors in the 
columns of our newspaper. I was not conscious that I 
was doing anything worthy of attention till a month or 
more after this beginning, when casual visitors at the office 
were shown in to see me at work. I was then setting 
up from manuscript-copy, and this required me often to 
do the punctuation ; and if punctuation correctly is to be 
done, it requires that the compositor knows what the 
author means. Writers, even the best, also occasionally 
write for the newspaper-press, who are proverbially with- 
out the ability to properly punctuate. I think it an inju- 
rious kindness to place a boy's merits on such exhibition, 
especially if he is doing well. It elates him undidy — at 
least, that was an effect on me. 

The first week ended memorably for me ; for on Satur- 
day evening, as I was leaving the office, I was recalled by 
the cashier, who handed to me three of the brightest half- 
dollars I have ever beheld. I have seldom been more 



20 



embarrassed. I knew how great the favor that I was 
there at all ; and I asked permission to decline taking the 
money. Mr. Gwinn had gone home, I was told. I was 
again and again assured that my work was useful, and 
that the money was not a gratuity. I believe this was as 
proud an occasion for me as any in my life ; and I have 
had occasions when I should be pardoned for feeling 
the glow of pride. I went quickly and directly home ; 
gave my mother the three half-dollars ; and to my aston- 
ished, and by no means jjleased parents, revealed that I 
had not been that week at school, but was " a printer's 
devil." They were not readily reconciled, particularly 
my father, who had ambitious notions for my future. 
I think he had a hope that in the fullness of time I 
might receive an appointment for a cadetship at West 
Point ; and, also, Hon. John L. O'Sullivan and his friend 
Commodore ^ Matthew C. Perry were regarding me as a 
probable candidate for the Navy School at Annapolis. 
That Saturday was, nevertheless, for me a gala night : I 
had my first sight of the interior of a circus. The com- 
pany was Cook's famous English troupe ; and the panto- 
mime on the stage — in the Front Street Theatre — was 
Cinderella ; an establishment, with its magnificent array 
of horses, soon afterwards destroyed there by fire. I was 
present at the conflagration, and the sight gave me a long 
heartache. 

What might have resulted from my father's unwilling- 
ness was never to occur, as inexorable circumstances 
early settled the question for us all : the next Saturday all 
were paid their wages in paper money. The banks had 
at length suspended specie payment, and the currency 
known as " shin-plasters " was afloat upon the country. 

^ Then commander. After the tweeu these gentlemen on this sub- 
time of my father's death I found ject. That of O'Sullivan's I still 
among his papers letters written he^ have. 



21 

I was soon, with the world all before me, to make my 
way ; and, from the first, with a care of othei's, — a care 
bnrthensome at times, still ever a ballast that kept me 
often steady and in a safe course. During this historical 
panic and crises, retrenchment of course was imperative 
in all things, and then there came the unexpected need 
that we all should be profitably employed, and that my 
father should again seek new employment elsewhere ; 
and so he left Baltimore late in the spring of 1838 and 
went to Philadelphia, where we joined him that autumn ; 
but he, meeting with only further discouragement, pro- 
ceeded to New York in the summer of 1839, where he 
renewed his old friendship with Horace Greeley, who was 
now editing and publishing the " Politician's Register " 
and the " Weekly New Yorker." The " Log Cabin " 
was to come* into existence the next year (1810), and the 
year following the " Tribune " to be " founded by Horace 
Greeley," and to begin its grand course the year succeed- 
ing.i In Mr. Greeley's service he continued till his death, 
August 15, 1845. 

While I was at the " Baltimore Gazette," the old 
Franklin and Adams press ^ was still used. The days for 
the wonderful Hoe's press was not to be for years to 
come. The " dabber " was still sometimes used to ink 
the form of type ; but soon the mechanical roller, and 
then with it the mechanical distributer of the ink, came. 
These were worked on alternate days by the other two ap- 
prentices and myself ; we on one side of the press and the 
pressman ojiposite, with his left shoulder towards the 

^ See page . from the press. I was during- this 

'^ The first number was published period doing- some work — setting 

in April, 1841. I was pi-esent that music, then printed from movable 

early Saturday morning in the base- type — for Mr. Winchester, whose 

ment of 29 Ann Street, New York, printing- office was in the same 

when O'Rourke, the pressman, bviilding. 
turned the first copy of the Tribune 



22 

tyiupan. Limited as the number of subscribers were, about 
two hundred and fifty as I recollect, it was all of two 
hours before the papers could be struck off, folded, and 
we boys prepared to deliver them. This was the custom 
in serving- subscribers, and looked on as no menial labor. 
We frequently entered at our own will into the residences, 
and on cold days were warmed by coffee and buns, and 
at the Christmas season gorged to the uttermost with 
niceties of domestic cookery. The present organized fa- 
cilities, indeed the need of them, for printing, folding, 
and service of newspapers were not even conceived. 

The chief exciting incident of the afternoon was the 
arrival of the " Express ; " which brought the latest news 
into town by ponies with saddle-bags, and ridden by post- 
boys. These boys were wonders of, and envied by, the 
town-boys. The horns were sounded as the ponies came 
on at fullest speed, on reaching the main or Baltimore 
Street, and as the little animals always were foaming at 
flank and mouth — a device to indicate a length of road 
and fierce sj^eed — it was a popular belief among the lads 
of the town that the ride was unbroken from city to city. 
The news was generally meagre, and a few lines sufficed, 
and appeared in the newspapers under a wood-cut repre- 
senting the pony at highest speed, saddle bags, and the 
postboy ; he blowing a horn from which the legend issued, 
" By Latest Express." 

I was at the " Gazette " office a year and more when — 
my father then gone to Philadelphia — I was persuaded 
by the Hon. Z. Collins Lee, an old friend of our family, 
to turn my back on printing, and enter what he called " a 
great opening " in a wholesale dry goods establishment, 
and become a wealthy merchant. He told me that I was 
" a born salesman," and that my " manners were per- 
suasive." I read the Life of William Roscoe, the Liver- 
pool merchant, and the biographer of Lorenzo the Mag- 

LQfC 



23 

nlficent and of Leo X., and I dilated with an appropriate 
emotion. I do not recollect who brought the work to 
my attention : perhaps Mr. Lee, who was a literary gour- 
met. The time of my probation was not sufficient to 
bring any such imputed ability into an approved perfec- 
tion ; for at the end of the month 1 was told that I was 
" too d — n genteel " for my place ; that I did little but 
read books and " wash my hands." It " was just like me," ^ 
for it was true I always had a book in hand during any 
cessation, however short, of actual business : and that I 
washed my hands too often in my new occu})ation was 
perhaps true. The latter infirmity was a sad habit ac- 
quired from the printer's art, where after handling type 
the hands are always soiled ; and the proneness to reading 
was ever a disposition as prevalent with me as if it arose 
from an original sin. So I and the uncongenialities of 
shop-keeping " in detail and in gross " parted, suddenly 
and determinately, never to meet again. I wished to be 
back again in the compositors' room, but I was too proud 
to ask to be taken back into the " Gazette " office. As 
my father was in Philadelphia, I looked to resume such 
labors there ; and I soon bade adieu to " the Monumental 
City." 

There are two, I hope noteworthy, instances, of that 
period which I desire to record. One is of the Literary 
Club, which met in the hall of the Medical College in 
Holiday Street, next door to the theatre. The club had 
among its members the best and most learned and bril- 
liant citizens of the town. I recollect of them the Hon. 

^ When Horace Greeley was go- and expressed a curiosity to learn 

ing by the diligence over the Briinig- why. " Perhaps you washed your 

Pass in Switzerland, dinner was, as face and hands after dinner. Three 

customary, taken at the hotel at sous is the eliarge," suggested a fel- 

Sarnum. He discovered, when they low tourist. " Well ! " said Greeley, 

were again en route, that he had " that would bejust like me." 
paid three sous more than the others ; 



24 

John P. Kennedy, author of " Horse-Shoe Robinson ; " 
Hon. Z. Collins Lee, Hon. William M. Meredith, and 
Edgar Allan Poe. They were habitual attendants. There 
was, also, a person afterwards well known in New York, 
named Michael Walsh; he had native abilities but little 
education or instruction, and was a naturally gifted speaker. 
He was after his removal to New York — probably was at 
the time I speak of — a remarkably good lithographer, and 
he was later famous as " Mike Walsh," and as the editor 
of a local political journal called " The Subterraneum." 
His end was in accord with the irregularities and excesses 
of his life. The interest, however, which drew me to the 
Medical College was, that over a high brick wall which 
divided its yaixl from a side of the college, the stage of 
the theatre could be seen, and there were opportunities in 
warm weather to look in upon the stage through the wings 
and see the performances ; and thus, unobserved, I first 
saw the play of "Richard the Third," — John R. Scott 
played the title part ; the famous Ravels ; and, in " the 
spectacular drama" of Gulliver in Lilliput, the dwarf 
" General " Stevens, Mary Gannon, and Porter, " the 
Kentucky Giant." That way I heard, also Miss Shereff, 
Wilson, and Brough sing the opera of " La Sonnambula." 
About this time was the memorable inundation caused 
by the great freshet, which, breaking the dam at Jones' 
Falls, came down the stream that passes through the 
lower parts of the city, sweeping away entirely the stone 
bridges over Gay Street and two of the large buildings 
adjoining. The principal l)ridge at Baltimore Street was 
an almost imjiassable wreck. I was there early the follow- 
ing morning, and the stream was yet most turbulent, and 
bearing dead cattle, pai*ts of farm buildings, fence i-ails, 
and the like, rapidly in its course. Baltimore in its finest 
parts is situate on a high plateau, and on one side rapidly 
slopes down to the streets near to the banks of the Jones' 



25 

Falls stream. In this lower district all the damage was 
done. Many who slept on first floors of residences were 
drowned, and one of the pitifidest sights I saw were the 
bodies of the Lutheran German pastor, and of his wife 
and child, lying on the bed where death came to them. 

Among the notabilities who came occasionally to Bal- 
timore was Joseph Bonaparte, the elder brother of Na- 
poleon I., and the former king of Spain. In October, 
1859, I saw in Paris, as he was coming out the main en- 
trance to the court of the Palais Royal, Jerome Bona- 
parte, the ancient king of Westphalia. He married and 
was the rightful husband of Elizabeth Paterson, of Balti- 
more : her successor was one of the movables arranged in 
compliance with dynastic policies. Her father was an 
Irishman, and a prosperous merchant and banker of Bal- 
timore. I suppose that the ex-king saw that my compan- 
ions and myself were Americans ; for he delayed a moment 
and lifted his hat with a sort of ceremony probably 
meant to be more emphatic than usual. Thus I have 
seen the eldest and the youngest brother of the first 
emperor. How near our own times are to those great 
events and to the prominent figures who seem as if to lie 
in the far, deep historic distance. 

With this opening chapter I proceed to relate that 
which I myself recollect, and that which I have learned 
from others about my family and about myself. I cannot 
be absolutely certain as to the accuracy of what I have 
been told about my ancestral or collateral kinsfolk ; but I 
should be sure, from the trustworthy nature of my infor- 
mation, that that which I am to relate is nearer the truth 
than such traditions often are. 






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